Example of textures used in the experiment.

<p>Textures were presented against a grey background. Computer-generated and photographed textures were used, some coloured and others in greyscale.</p

Examples of activation in the main contrasts.

<p>A. Comparison of activation during beauty versus roughness judgments shows signal increase in the frontomedian and posterior cingulate cortices. B. Comparison of activation for beautiful versus ugly stimuli shows signal increase in two clusters in the fusiform gyrus. Activation is presented for p<.001, uncorrected for multiple comparisons.</p

The temporal sequence is shown for the Sternberg task.

<p>Each run starts with the presentation a fixed memory set and is followed by ten probes. Subjects press a left button to targets and a right button to non-targets. For the novel condition, the target-set was varied for each run. For each practice run, the same target-set was used as in the practice session. For the baseline condition, the memory set consisted of two arrows (‘< ‘>’) and probe stimuli were single arrows (‘<’ or ‘>’). The task involved eight runs of each condition in a pseudorandom order. For the rTMS sessions, magnetic stimulation or sham stimulation was applied for 500 msec, starting 50 msec after the presentation of a probe.</p

The experimental design.

<p>Subjects participated in one fMRI and two rTMS sessions, one for parietal and for prefrontal rTMS. Each session started with a practice session with a unique fixed target-set.</p

Effect of rTMS on reaction time.

<p>Graphs illustrate that reaction time was lower in the practiced than in the novel condition, but rTMS had no effect on reaction times. a. reaction time during prefrontal rTMS; b. reaction time during parietal rTMS.</p

The individual stimulation locations in the left prefrontal (shown in red) and the left parietal cortex (shown in green) are displayed in MNI space for all participants in the study in a lateral (left) and a superior view (right).

<p>Individual stimulation locations were based on the voxel with the highest signal change in the novel-baseline contrast in the fMRI session. Numbers in blue represent MNI coordinates. </p

Summary of the fMRI results.

<div><p>a. regions showing significant difference between novel and practice condition (red: novel < practiced, blue: practiced > novel). Three regions showed an increase in activity for the practiced condition compare to the novel condition (a. right medial superior frontal cortex (rMSFC), b. left precuneus (lPCun), c. left Angular Gyrus (lAG). </p> <p>b. Signal change (baseline: rest) for the three regions where we found higher activity for practiced targets than for novel targets. The graph shows that in all three regions activity was below resting state activity for the novel condition, and closer to resting state for the practiced condition. Thus, none of these regions showed new or increased activity in the practiced condition, compared to the novel condition. </p> <p>c. fMRI signal measured at the individual prefrontal and parietal target regions for rTMS, based on the novel-baseline contrast. Both at the prefrontal and parietal regions, subjects showed significantly lower activity for practiced than for novel target-sets. </p></div